


The Future Begins Tomorrow

by bookwyrmling



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Car Accidents, Death, F/M, Family Issues, Grief/Mourning, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Kid Fic, M/M, Post-Canon, Racism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:06:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25944064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookwyrmling/pseuds/bookwyrmling
Summary: In the future, Eric won’t remember a lot of what happens tonight, and what he does remember will be disjointed and out of order.But it all begins with a date.
Relationships: Eric "Bitty" Bittle/Jack Zimmermann, Larissa "Lardo" Duan/Shitty Knight
Comments: 16
Kudos: 79
Collections: Check Please Heartbreak Fest 2020





	The Future Begins Tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Leahelisabeth (fortheloveofcamelot)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fortheloveofcamelot/gifts).



> I was immediately drawn to this prompt only to realize partway through writing it's because I'm still processing all the sheer WORK that comes with a loved one's death after helping my mother after my grandfather's death last year and supporting my friend as she puts her mother's estate in order, this year. It barely brushes on it because it's apparently still a lot to process and if I got too into the details it'd get pretty boring pretty fast, but the exhaustion and not knowing how/when to handle all of it and mourn is very very real, so thank you for giving me the opportunity to write this.
> 
> Anyway, I hope the fic is everything you were looking for. I feel like I can't promise a happy ending when character death is involved, but it is, at the least, hopeful. There will be joy again in all their lives.
> 
> CONTENT WARNINGS: Shitty and Lardo die in this fic and it is a major point of the story as they leave their surviving child to Zimbits' care. Shitty's father is a minor character who makes an unpleasant appearance, as well, which is why the Racism tag is present. It's a microaggression, where he mispronounces his grandson's name incorrectly but it is continuous despite the opportunity to learn. Please take care if you need to when it comes to reading.

In the future, Eric won’t remember a lot of what happens tonight, and what he does remember will be disjointed and out of order. There will be a phone call and arguing and crying into a baby blanket in a living room that would never feel lived in while he was in it ever again and a cup of cold, stale coffee and threats of legal action. There will be Bình sleeping and crying and Eric knows the smiling must have happened first, but it’s the hardest one to recall and always comes last in his mind when he thinks of that night. It feels wrong, after everything that happens, to remember Bình giggling in his chest carrier as Eric boops his nose and dances around the kitchen with the final touches to his and Jack’s dinner while Bình’s bottle rests half-empty on the counter until he’s ready for more.

But the night starts out with a date.

It’s not theirs. Shitty and Lardo are going out on their first baby-free date since Bình became a part of their lives and they had dropped him off at Eric and Jack’s with more luggage than either Jack or Eric ever took on any of their trips any more and that included Jack’s hockey gear for his roadies.

There’s the carrier, though they have no plans to go anywhere tonight, so thankfully don’t need to wrassle the base from the backseat of Shitty’s Prius, though they do make a second trip for the stroller so Jack and Eric don’t have to miss their usual evening walk. There is the diaper bag with diapers and accoutrements and a changing mat. There are bottles of pumped breast milk and three different pacifiers. There are several changes of clothes and a handful of burping cloths and rattles and soft toys and a security blanket and a baby gym all folded up next to the chest carrier and Shitty and Lardo look like they don’t want to go at first until Eric promises to send pictures every hour on the hour and Jack forces them out the door with a joke that isn’t funny but makes everyone laugh all the same.

Eric sends a picture of Bình sleeping in the carrier then plops back onto the sofa where he’d been looking over the layout options for his second cookbook as he waits for word from their lawyer about the contract from Netflix for an appearance as a guest judge on _Nailed It!_ while Jack takes a conference call with the coaching team and his A’s this coming season.

That’s still going on when the pages start to blur on Eric’s screen, so when Bình starts fussing, Eric shuts his laptop and does a quick warm up of one of the bottles before grabbing Bình at his first proper wail.

Jack steps out of the home office as Eric sends the next picture of a freshly burped baby, still a bit of milk around his mouth and chin and takes over while Eric moves to the kitchen where the steaks had been resting on the counter since Jack pulled them out before slipping away for his conference call.

Dinner is half-eaten and another picture is sent when Jack’s phone rings.

Growing up, Eric had always had his Uncle Bert and Auntie Lorie and his Aunt Tabby and Uncle Kip. They weren’t blood related, but they’d always been a part of his family. Uncle Bert had been his dad’s assistant coach in Savannah for years before Eric was born and Aunt Tabby had been his mother’s college roommate and maid of honor. They’d been there for all his birthdays and pinched his cheeks to this very day and spoiled him rotten with presents and candies whenever they saw him (his Auntie Lorie’s purse had always had candy or gum in it that she snuck to him even when his parents said no back when he still lived in Georgia). There was a picture on the mantle at home from his christening with all four of them standing right next to his parents, all of them reaching out hands to help hold him in his little white outfit.

When Shitty and Lardo had asked Jack and Eric to be Bình’s godparents, that was what he’d been picturing and he had cried tears of joy when he and Jack had said yes.

When Shitty had explained to them that he was updating his and Lardo’s wills to note them as Guardians, Eric had been surprised that they even had a will, but hadn’t thought much about it otherwise.

Two hours after Jack hangs up his phone, they are sitting in a Medical Examiner’s office, still too stunned to absorb the news.

A car accident.

Someone fell asleep at the wheel and drove into oncoming traffic, which just also happened to be Shitty and Lardo, and that was that.

Eric knows he should be glad to hear they likely didn’t suffer, but…

He looks down at Bình, recently fed and back to sleeping in a new carrier after Jack had run to buy a carseat for the trip, and a larger part of him than he’d ever admit wishes the driver that caused it all had suffered.

There’s shouting then, as Shitty’s dad finally arrives. Shitty’s mother must have been the one to call him, like she had called Jack. Lardo’s family is sitting together silently nearby, looking just as shocked as everyone else.

Eric feels like he should be comforting them, but he’s not sure what to do without something to offer beside a cup of the stale coffee in the table at the back of the room and after a few sips of the cup Jack had poured for him, he wouldn’t wish its watery bitterness on anyone else. Even a smile seems too far beyond his abilities right now, let alone a pie or some cookies. If he had access to a kitchen, he’d be elbows deep in dough, but even with his mouth attached to his face, he can’t imagine lifting the corners.

But there isn’t really a reason for them to be here. It’s not a hospital. They aren’t all gathering to wait for news. The news is out. Shitty and Lardo are dead. Lardo’s family is here to support her father as he identifies the bodies for the autopsy. Eric is pretty sure Shitty has his mom as successor agent for power of attorney and secondary executor, but maybe she hadn’t wanted to be the one to identify her son.

Bình starts to fuss and Eric lifts him out of the seat, bouncing him for a moment to settle him into his arms and then starting to walk around when that doesn’t seem to quite settle him back to sleep.

The fussing seems to be enough to draw Mr. Knight’s attention from haranguing the woman behind the desk long enough for her to retreat to the back behind a locked door.

“If you can’t keep him under control, don’t bring him out,” Mr. Knight grouses, immediately turning his temper on his new target.

“He’s a child,” Eric points out, already drawing Bình in as tightly as he dare. “Children cry.”

“There’s no point for children to even be in such a place,” Mr. Knight presses, his eyes glancing to the side as Eric senses Jack walk up beside him.

Jack rests an arm over Eric’s shoulders and Eric feels safe enough for the worst of the tension to bleed out.

“Since you are here, might as well stay for the time being,” Mr. Knight continues and just when Eric thinks he might not be as horrible as usual, the man opens his mouth again and says, “I’ll take him in. Ben bears the Knight name and the Knight family has the money and connections to do so.”

“Your son and his wife named my husband and I as Guardians of their child, Bình, in their will,” Jack replies, stepping forward as his hand around Eric’s shoulder directs him into stepping back and behind him. “While we are happy to let you spend time with him and want to work with both families, we are not going to ignore their wishes,” Jack argued fiercely as he maintained his position between Mr. Knight and Eric and Bình.

“What would you even know about raising a kid? You married one.” He doesn’t wait for a response before he continues, a man clearly used to being right and getting his way. “What sort of schedule would you expect to maintain for a growing child, anyway? Celebrities always mess their children up. Besides, a child belongs with its family. Or do you plan on keeping Ben from his rightful family?”

“I only said, Mr. Knight, that we’re the ones legally responsible for Bình,” Jack says as he puffs out his chest, looking very much like someone scored a dirty goal that he was about to pay back in the most severe of ways.

“We’ll see what the court has to say about that.”

“About upholding the last will and testament of his parents? Or about keeping a child with someone who actually pronounces his name correctly?” Jack says. It is clear he finds the whole argument absurd. “If you seek to take any legal action, just have your lawyer contact mine. I’ll let him know to expect it.”

Shitty’s dad doesn’t stop threatening Jack, however, and Bình seems to be picking up on the anger, so Eric goes back for the pacifier and draws Lardo’s grandmother’s attention. Which is when Eric realizes that while he may not have baked goods, he does have a baby, so he sits down next to Mrs. Tran and they coo over the child together despite the language barrier while Mr. Tran and Mr. Duan grumble to each other and glare at Mr. Knight and Mrs. Duan handles informing the family, her free hand plugging her free ear as she speeds through phone calls in both English and Vietnamese.

Shitty’s mother—“Penny, please!”—eventually seems to get tired of trying to shut her ex-husband up and realizes she’s only adding to the tension as Jack remains cool and on the phone with the family lawyer. She falls into the chair on Eric’s other side to get her own fill of chubby cheeks and squirming, gummy baby fussing.

The Medical Examiner takes Mr. Knight into the back and there’s a moment of peace in the waiting room.

“Byron named me as his backup executor, so I’m aware of his and Lardo’s wishes,” she says, sounding beyond tired. “Are the two of you sure you’re ready for this?”

Eric looks down at Bình and takes a deep, shuddering breath. “We haven’t even processed this enough to begin talking about it, really,” he admits. Eric had always planned to be there like his own godparents were, to the side but ready to spoil him given any opportunity. Becoming Bình’s legal guardians, becoming his parents, had never been in their plans even if they knew it was possible and had agreed to it.

“We’ll make it work,” he promises, even if he’s not sure how. There’s still enough numbness from the shock that the crushing anxiety remains at bay.

“Well, his family’s here to help,” Penny promises in return with an exhausted smile before she begins to play with her key ring. “Do you have everything you need for the time being?” she continues as she pulls a key and fob off her ring and holds it out. “This is for their place. I imagine there are at least a few items you should grab since you’re already here. And there’s not much reason for you to stay here any longer. Bình should sleep and you two should, as well.”

Eric accepts the key with a muted thanks as Mr. Duan is called back, as well.

“I got in contact with my lawyer and he’s working on finding someone who’s good for Massachusetts and Rhode Island family law,” Jack says with a sigh as they drive to Shitty and Lardo’s loft. “I also contacted my agent to keep her in the loop.”

“Your parents?” Eric asks.

Jack’s grip tightens on the wheel and Eric knows the answer.

“Me, too,” he says with a sigh. It’s only then he realizes how many other conversations they’re going to have to have over the next few days. Eric glances back at Bình, who is back to sleeping in his carseat, before sighing at his phone in his hands. He should call his parents. He should call the rest of the old team. He doesn’t want to have that conversation, though. Part of him wants to put the news out in the group chat, but he doesn’t want to deal with the calls or the questions that will invite. Even asking someone else to spread the news risked more than he wanted to deal with right now. They were tired, they were in shock, they had to be thinking clearly enough to grab actual necessities for Bình, their new child—and they were definitely going to have to have a lot of talks about that soon—and didn’t have the energy for anything else.

Shitty and Lardo live—lived, but Eric does not like having to make that distinction just yet—in a loft in South Boston. Lardo’s art hangs on the walls, surrounded by photos of family and friends and Shitty’s SMH sweater in a shadow box. Eric’s hands and breath shakes as he takes it in when Jack turns on the light, but Eric is also the first one to swallow past the choking loss and find the second diaper bag in their bedroom where they’d been cosleeping with Bình his first few months. Eric sends one glance at the cosleeper and decides to leave that to Jack while he stuffs baby powder and Aquaphor and burp cloths and as many clothes and diapers as possible in it before slipping into the bathroom to grab the baby shampoo, lotion, hooded towel and a few of the bath toys the family had managed to amass thanks to having a literal hockey team of uncles ready to spoil. He grabs the bath seat, as well, and sets it in the entryway.

Jack is in the kitchen area, pulling bottles and tops and disposable liners and small baby spoons and bibs out of cupboards and drawers. He opens the freezer to find the jars of mashed and pureed baby foods Eric had made for them when Bình hit six months not even ten days ago piled next to the bags of breastmilk and has to shut the door.

Eric walks up alongside him and rests his head against Jack’s arm as he runs an arm along his back. “Could you get the cosleeper from the bed, sweetpea?” he asks, “Or do you need to step outside for a bit? I’ll finish up in here.”

Jack pauses for a moment; takes a deep breath, holds, lets it out slowly. “No, Bits, I can do that,” he whispers as he leans into the touch, turning to pull Eric into his arms and press a kiss to the top of his head.

“It’s okay if you need a break, Jack,” Eric says as he finds himself suddenly having to blink back tears.

“You, too, bud.”

Jack’s next breath sounds wet and the stinging in Eric’s nose grows stronger, but now is not the time to cry and he scrunches his eyes and tightens his hold on Jack until he breaks past the restricting agony and emptiness in his chest. “We got this,” he says instead as he pulls away and smiles up at Jack.

Jack smiles back down at him and pats his arms as he finally releases him. “I’ll get the cosleeper.”

There are four reusable grocery bags filled with utensils, a bottle drying rack, baby food and frozen and refrigerated breast milk by the time Eric calls it done and wanders the several feet into the loft’s living area to check for anything they might need from there. There are plenty of things they won’t be taking with them tonight, but, at the least, they need enough to get them through the next few days and that includes items of comfort or play for Bình.

Eric’s hand comes to rest on a knit baby blanket thrown over the back of the sofa as he loses the ability to breathe and the first tears finally break through. In his memory, he hears Lardo cursing fibercraft to hell and back as she tears out three rows to fix a dropped stitch.

“How is this so much harder? Bà made Mom a blanket. Mom made me a blanket. I’m gonna make a blanket, too, if it kills the both of us,” she had grumbled as she stubbornly started back up.

She’d gotten better towards the end, but eventually gave up on catching and fixing every mistake, as well, so while the knitting was more even there were more errors if you looked closely.

“I don’t need Athena cursing me,” she had said as her due date neared the two weeks mark and she worked on tying the final row off. “A few imperfections add character, anyway.”

Eric’s fingers clenched around the blanket and drew it up to his face as the sobs began in earnest.

Eric has never been a pretty cryer. Generally there tends to be a lot of tears, a lot of snot and a lot of noise. His face gets red and his eyes get swollen and sometimes he cries so hard he can’t breathe.

His gasps and sobs bring Jack pounding down the stairs and wake Bình up from his slumber and into his own wailing at the surprise of it all.

Jack picks up the carrier and sets it down in front of the couch as he pulls Eric into his arms and draws them both to sit on the couch.

“Oh, bud,” Jack soothes, running his hands up and down Eric’s back, pressing kisses onto his head and burying his face in his hair like he’s the one being comforted in all of this. “Breathe.”

Eric presses his face into the soft knit of the blanket and cries and tries to breathe while Bình still wails at his feet.

Eventually he breathes.

Eventually he calms, his crying slowing, his sobs shrinking into gasps and hiccups.

Eric lifts his head out of the blanket and turns to look down at Bình, watching how Jack is using one of his feet to rock the carrier in an attempt to soothe him and feels his heart clench.

He takes a few more moments just to breathe and soothe himself before he notices there is something hard pressing into his spine.

“Honey, what do you have in your hands?” he asks, his voice still sounding wet and wrecked even if his tone has normalized.

Jack snorts and pulls just far enough away to bring his hand between them and show the pipe and bag of pot. “I found it tucked under the mattress.”

“Oh, Lord,” Eric laughs as he closes his hand over the items. “They do know it was legalized years ago, don’t they?”

“Maybe it was to keep it out of sight.” Jack shrugs. “I know Shitty swore off getting high so long as Lardo couldn’t.”

They smile fondly at the paraphernalia until Eric sighs and leans his forehead against Jack’s shoulder, shutting his burning eyes. “I just...I don’t know what to think,” he admits. “It’s too horrible. And there’s so much to do, like I can’t even wrap my head around it all, let alone my heart. I just have to keep going. I can’t imagine how their parents feel.”

There’s a clink and crumple as Jack sets the items on the coffee table before he tightens his arms around Eric once again. “I know, Bud. I have the cosleeper by the door. What do you say we go home?”

“If the car puts Bình to sleep as fast as it did earlier, I think that sounds like a very good idea.” Eric says with wry exhaustion as Bình continues to cry on the coffee table.

“We’re going to have this parenting thing down really fast.”

Eric laughs again as he wipes at his nose and eyes with his sleeves. “You’re the worst.”

But when Jack stands, Eric stands with him. Jack makes three trips to get everything into the vehicle while Eric focuses on getting Bình to stop crying through application of a consistently spat out pacifier and shaking of a stuffed Tigger toy.

He is moderately calm by the time Jack starts the car. He’s asleep by the time they hit the interstate.

The drive home is quick thanks to how late it is. There’s no traffic and most of the lights they hit once they get back to Providence are green. Home is a relief and Bình, thankfully, remains dead to the world when they carry him inside.

“I’ll change him and get him ready for bed if you get the cosleeper set up,” Eric offers. Jack gives him a kiss and accepts and, within half an hour, the car is unpacked, the breastmilk and baby food in the fridge and freezer, the cosleeper set up on Jack’s side of the bed so neither of them smack themselves against it trying to get to the closet and Bình is sleeping in a clean diaper and dinosaur print footed pajamas.

Jack and Eric sink into the mattress on their own sides of the bed and collapse back against the pillows.

“We’re gonna need to babyproof the place better,” Eric groans, already looking around the bedroom and seeing threats.

“I was thinking about using my next signing bonus to go towards a house, but maybe we should just speed that process up,” Jack mumbles, scratching at his belly where the shirt has ridden up enough to expose a splash of skin between it and his boxers.

Eric takes a deep, shaking breath and lets it out. “Baby and a house? That’s a lot of life changes all at once…”

Jack reaches out with a hand and squeezes Eric’s tight. Both of them are shaking. “It is,” Jack agrees. “We can talk more later. Sleep now.” Neither lets go, though the hold does loosen into something more restful.

There is still a lot to talk about, with each other, with Shitty’s and Lardo’s parents, with their own parents. They still need to break the news to their parents, to the old Samwell team, to the Falconers and to Tater who’s kept in touch after being traded to Tampa and Marty who moved back to Montréal after retiring, to Eric’s staff and agent. He’ll probably have to turn down that Netflix gig unless he can tighten up his schedule and find someone to watch Bình since filming will be during Jack’s season. His cookbook may have to wait, as well, or at least any non-local promotion of it. For a moment, Eric wonders if his mother would be able to travel with him and Bình, but if he continues to think like this, Eric knows the thoughts will go round and round and he’ll end up exactly nowhere. He’ll save it for the future.

In the future, they’ll break the news with everyone and cry and mourn with each person over the phone, over video, in person. In the future, Bình will start teething and neither Jack nor Eric will be allowed to sleep if he isn’t and their freezer will develop a compartment for teething toys. In the future, at the funeral, Mr. Knight will rescind his threats to seek legal action against Jack and Eric and ask to see his grandson, whom he still calls Ben. It’s a start. In the future, Jack and Eric will meet Penny at the apartment and hand her back the keys she collected the night of the accident and help her sort through all of Bình’s items as well as a few of Shitty’s and Lardo’s personal effects they want to keep for themselves and want to share with their son as he grows. In the future, Eric and Jack will take one of Lardo’s paintings, the one hanging large over their dining table that she painted when she was pregnant, and turn it into a wall mural for Bình’s room in their new house.

In the future, they will visit with Lardo’s family during Tết and Eric will beg Bà to teach him how to make her banh chung. In the future, Bà will refuse, but she will teach him how she makes mut and they will exchange candied fruits every year from then on. Auntie will say it is because she won’t give away recipes that keep them coming back while Jack and Uncle will argue about hockey and how the Bruins and Falconers are doing that season. In the future, Jack and Eric will sit through stilted family dinners with Shitty’s dad and paternal grandparents over Thanksgiving and Mr. Knight will learn to pronounce his grandson's name correctly. Mostly. They will also join Shitty’s mom in Cambridge for Easter brunch and egg hunts and discussions about literature and politics that will tell Jack and Bitty exactly where Shitty got it from. They will fly down to Madison for the 4th of July and spend Christmas opening presents while snowed in with Jack’s parents in Québec.

In the future, Bình will learn to bake pies and cookies and costar in a series of videos on kid-friendly recipes. He will lose his first tooth running into a piñata at a classmate’s birthday party. He’ll lose his second falling face first on the ice and Jack will give him a high-five on his first hockey injury while Eric runs for gauze because that tooth was not ready to come out yet. Later, Eric will show pictures of his own gaping smile from his senior year at Samwell. In the future, Bình will think girls have cooties until he’s nine and then he’ll know they don’t but say they do anyway until he’s thirteen and Janae Williams invites him to her softball match. In the future, Eric won’t remember a lot of that night, but he will still know the details because he and Jack will talk about how they want Bình to know his parents and how they will answer the eventual questions or give him the knowledge before he even needs to ask and they will have an army of family and friends to help them each step of the way.

But, for now, Eric and Jack sigh into each other and allow themselves to be angry, to be scared, to mourn and, finally, to sleep. The future will wake them with squalling lungs in six hours.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my fellow mods for helping me run this. You've really kicked ass! Thank you to alpha-exodus for making this event and allowing us to revive it. And thank you, Ngozi, for giving us such an amazing universe and characters and story.


End file.
